Time to Upgrade the Stereo 3D Testing Systems to Water Cooling…

The summer is coming and it is time to get hot, really hot outside (depending on where you live of course), but with the temperatures increasing and all the hot hardware he have into out computers playing in stereo 3D can bring some issue. You should know that playing games in stereoscopic 3D mode is more demanding for your hardware and that does not mean only the GPU, but all other components and they all generate more heat. And with the the high-end video cards like GeForce GTX 4xx Fermi and Radeon HD 5xxx the heat dissipated is already quite a lot and the air cooling might sometimes give you quite high temperatures reaching even over 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit and that is not good…

I’ve already started working on upgrading my stereoscopic 3D test PC using GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 5970 to water cooling for the quad-core AMD CPU and the Radeon HD 5970 GPU and removing the GTX 275 card (to be used for iZ3D testing). The other project I’ve started working on is building a new Nvidia-based water cooled PC that will use single GeForce GTX 480 videocard and and Intel i7 quad-core processor with everything stuffed inside a Big Corsair Obsidian 800D case (great and big case, on the photo above, ideal for more serious water cooling projects). I think it is about time to get a GTX 480 card for stereoscopic 3D gaming with 3D Vision, because the GTX 275 is a bit old already and the GT 9800Ms in SLI inside the test Dell M1730 laptops is even slower. But thanks to a lot of money going into the upgrade and new system, I’ve postponed the purchase of a new 3D HDTV for testing at least for the end of the year hoping for some better prices and more content and easier PC connectivity for gaming in stereo 3D by then. I’m planning to get a Panasonic VT20E Plasma 3D HDTV as this is what is currently available and the best choice so far from what I’ve seen, unless other competitors manage to offer something better meanwhile.

Say tuned for some more information about the water cooling upgrade for my current test 3D system and the new PC built especially for stereoscopic 3D gaming coming soon… and I do hope to have some benchmarks in stereo 3D with the GTX 480 in stereo 3D mode on some of the newer and popular game titles… ;)

I have a GTX 480 and it works great with nvidia 3d vision! So far I can run Batman AA on high , with physx on medium, running 3d, and at 1080p resolution perfectly. If I run it completely maxed out it is slightly choppy however still playable. I have also ran FEAR maxed out with 3d vision, I think the becnhmark was about 45 fps average. Resident Evil 5 bencmark program maxed out with 2X anti-aliasing got an average of about 40 FPS in stereoscopic 3d mode.

Hey, good news on the upgrade. I recently built a PC with the thought of going water cooling, yet have decided to build my machine in a Coolermaster HAF box with optional fans. Running dual GTX480’s in SLI will mean more heat, however, I am yet to see how summer will go. Being in Australia, temperatures can get high so lets see. I will provide an update next March 2011 if the thread still exists.